Notes & Combos

M1 - Dinomorphia Labrynth

Went on vacation, came back, and the meta is just as “fun” as I remember it. On that note, a lot of the same concepts and direction from late April still work here in May, so there really wasn’t too much of a reason to switch off this variant for this season’s climb. Its tools this month are hardly ever outplaced: Its particular moment-to-moment disruption never truly felt reductive, and often landing complementary to other interaction when sealing opposing lines. And as usual, its level of passive flooding is still a bright spot and one of the bigger reasons to gravitate to the deck in the first place to get M1 done without wasting time.

Notes

• To really no surprise, the most probable case of losing a game this season is likely to come from Primite Blue Eyes - given both its sheer meta share on ladder and power level - it's bound to get you at some point during the climb. With that said, that matchup is being respected here a good deal. Unlike most Labs, this list is much heavier on hand traps; embracing conventional mainstays for the matchup like Ghost Ogre and welding that to a bit thicker pool of Bystials along with aggressive selections like Shifter to help turn the tide. The effort doesn't stop there either. IDP is an excellent early game weapon against BE,fully committed to in triplicate, and the suite of cont traps do a good job of keeping Drillbeam away or limiting its impact over the game without being too narrow or clunky when inevitably played elsewhere. Slanting against the top deck in the field is generally desirable, but even more so in a season that's as top heavy as this and that’s more than accomplished here.

• While there's a good amount of incentive to still look to the Dinomorphia engine in May, what it does for the Memento matchup that ordinarily, can be on the trickier side for Lab, just might be at the top of the list. Rex is a significant presence here not only given how monster needy the MU is to progress and disrupt, but also how shorthanded most builds tend to be on answers for it - usually only containing a handful of options like Super Poly to effectively deal with the dinosaur. However, the Diabellze version that has picked up more popularity in recent time in particular has been more inclined to go low on breakers or skip out altogether, and thus, the likelihood of Rex just sticking and outright running away with the game is quite high - a value that was certainly useful at the higher end of the ladder.